


A Tough Act to Follow

by sue_denimme



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sue_denimme/pseuds/sue_denimme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Jane Smith's thoughts and feelings as she encounters the Tenth Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tough Act to Follow

**Author's Note:**

> All the dialogue in this story is taken directly from "School Reunion". Spoilers if you haven't seen that episode.

"Hello, Sarah Jane," he says quietly.

There's no mistaking who he is, now that she's seen the TARDIS.

Sarah feels a bit foolish for not recognizing him earlier. She knows it's silly to expect herself to know him whatever he looked like, but somehow she'd always thought she would. He'd certainly recognized _her_ \-- he'd been staring at her, practically trembling with excitement. She'd wondered why, of course. Couldn't be love at first sight. She knows she's aged well, but come on, he was young enough to be her son. Maybe he was just really enthusiastic about meeting people.

She hadn't gotten it even when he'd given her the old "John Smith" alias. That should have been a clue. Why hadn't he -- Oh, right, right, there'd been other people about, and he didn't seem to be in charge of the place -- yet -- so perhaps he was maintaining a cover which would have been blown sky high if he'd said anything. She's an investigative journalist, after all, and she understands covers.

Her Doctor had never bothered with covers; he'd simply breeze in and baffle everybody into submission. This Doctor has learned at least some subtlety. Half a dozen regenerations, he tells her. Well, that probably explains it. You don't die and come back all those times without getting it through your head that a little discretion can work wonders, she'd imagine.

She takes him in. Hmm, he's certainly hit big in the genetic lottery this time. Tall, dark hair, brown eyes (not blue), and, well, he's really rather handsome. Her Doctor had had a face that had been...interesting, to say the least, but not handsome. She had loved that face, but she could get used to this one.

Apparently he's also lost his fetish for the Edwardian era and weird affectations like ruffles and ridiculously long scarves. He's in a sharp, modern pinstripe suit and tie, and the quirkiest thing about his ensemble is the scuffed white trainers. Over it all goes a long brown trenchcoat which she's sure flaps quite dramatically when he wants it to.

It only takes her a minute to start crying. She's been waiting so long. Thirty years, and he never came back until now. "I thought you must have died," she says.

"I lived. Everyone else died," he replies, softly, and she can't miss the pain in his voice. That shuts her up. For the moment.

***

He's got a girl with him, of course. Some things never change. This one can't be more than twenty. Practically a fetus. Sarah is amazed to hear herself. Dear God, she's nearly sixty; she ought to be above that sort of thing. At least they're not pulling hair, yet.

One thing she does have in common with Rose is that neither of them is any too pleased that the Doctor has never mentioned Sarah. Sarah isn't sure how to take this revelation. On the one hand, she's hurt. When they'd parted, he'd told her not to forget him, and she hadn't. Who, after all, could forget someone like the Doctor? But had he forgotten her, until now? On the other hand, however, maybe the reason he hadn't spoken of her was that for him the memory was too precious to be shared. If that was the case, well, then she could forgive him. She'll have to think about that.

The Doctor, for his part, has the grace to seem a bit embarrassed. Serves him right, but Sarah almost feels sorry for him. Almost. Not enough to let him off the hook.

***

She finally gets her chance later, in the chip shop as he's fixing K9. Rose and Mickey are in the other corner, talking. Mickey is Rose's boyfriend, but he's not the one that Rose looks at in that way. Even if she is mad at the Doctor right now, it doesn't stop her from being smitten with him. And, really, who can blame her? What girl wouldn't love a man who gives her the whole of space and time? Particularly a man who looks like the Doctor does in his current incarnation. Poor Mickey.

Anyway, the Doctor. At last she can ask him everything she's longed all these years to be able to ask. Why did he dump her? Had she done something wrong? If not, then why hadn't he come back?

To his credit, he does respect her enough to try to explain, though his actual answers aren't very satisfactory, but then what did she expect? He's the Doctor.

"You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, you showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles -- and then you just dropped me back on Earth. How could anything compare to that?" she asks.

He looks at her, his brow furrowed. "All those things you saw -- do you want me to apologize for that?"

He's not getting it, and she wants to shake him. But she stays calm. It's important to her that he understands just what it does to someone when he leaves them behind. "No, but we get a taste of that splendor, and then we have to go back."

The Doctor smiles at her over K9's head. "But look at you. You're investigating. You found that school. You're doing what we always did."

And he's right, Sarah realizes, with a shock.

"You could've come back," she says, not ready to let it rest.

"I couldn't." His tone is gentle, but final. And sad. No long justifications, no excuses about how it would break the laws of time or whatever. Just a simple "I couldn't".

In that moment, he looks...old.

She asks him why not, but he doesn't answer. Perhaps he can't answer. Perhaps he doesn't know. But somehow, now that she can look into his eyes again, she knows that it wasn't because he'd forgotten her or because their time together hadn't meant anything to him.

Maybe it had meant too much.

***

She and Rose finally break the ice as they're trying to get the school computers open so the Doctor can look at the hardware. It starts while they're trying to one-up each other, whipping out names of the monsters they've encountered. They catch each other's eye, and suddenly it's all hilarious, and they've gone in an instant from fighting over the Doctor to laughing at him. When he happens to innocently walk in to ask how they're doing, looking at his perplexed expression only sets them off more.

Rose, young as she is, is no wilting flower. Not if she's faced the Dalek Emperor and lived. There must be something to her, Sarah decides. After all, the Doctor doesn't choose just anybody.

***

"Join us," Mr. Finch breathes, almost hypnotically.

The Doctor has a faraway look. "I could save everyone...I could stop the war..."

Sarah can't believe it. He's actually tempted. Her Doctor would never even consider switching sides, selling his soul. He'd have laughed in the alien's face.

But her Doctor hadn't been the sole survivor of a terrible war that had wiped out his entire race. Back during that incarnation, there had still been a Gallifrey, and Time Lords.

She speaks up, desperately. "No. The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss -- they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship...everything has its time. And everything ends."

She's addressing Finch, but she's really talking to the Doctor. And herself. It's taken her thirty years, but she understands now. She's been feeling as if her existence was empty, just because it no longer contained Daleks or Cybermen, or the Doctor. All this time, she's been getting on with things, and built a pretty great life for herself, all things told, but she's been too busy blaming him for what was not his fault to notice.

The Doctor focuses on her for a long moment. She sees that familiar strength and resolve flood back into his eyes. He grits his teeth, picks up a chair and hurls it through the large screen displaying the code to mold the universe.

"OUT!" he roars to his companions. And they all run. Just like old times.

***

It ends the same way most of the Doctor's adventures do, in piles of rubble and shattered glass, but there is no loss of life, on the good guys' side, anyway. Unless you count one tin dog.

"Cuppa tea?" the Doctor asks, standing beside the open door of the TARDIS, his eyebrows lifted in invitation.

She goes inside. Like the Doctor, the TARDIS has changed. It's like a cavern of coral in some undersea grotto. A far cry from the stark whiteness she remembers. She tells him she likes it, though she does prefer it as it was. But that's all right.

"You could come with us."

The Doctor's voice is uncharacteristically small, and hopeful. Rose is smiling encouragingly. It's so tempting. Going back to that life of getting chased by monsters and threatened by intergalactic maniacs; hypnotized right, left, and center; having the beauties and the terrors of the universe laid before her feet; and a brilliant, infuriating, wonderful alien to show her all the bits she'd missed the first time.

Sarah shakes her head. "No. I can't do this any more," she says. She sees the smile fade from the Doctor's face, to be replaced by a look of simultaneous disappointment, understanding, and pride. She has never loved him more.

"Besides," she adds, "I've got a much bigger adventure ahead. Time I stopped waiting for you and found a life of my own."

Mickey, though, is up for it, and the Doctor is apparently feeling generous, because he accepts, though Rose, oddly, doesn't seem so enthused. She looks at Sarah, and the older woman takes her aside as the Doctor starts showing Mickey some of the controls.

"What do I do?" Rose asks quietly. "Do I stay with him?"

"Yes," Sarah replies, without hesitation. "Some things are worth getting your heart broken for."

It will end for this girl, too, eventually, and she will go back to living her life. But she has a feeling that Rose can do more than weather it. She embraces her, and as she does so, slips her card into Rose's pocket. It has her phone number and email address.

"Find me," she says. "If you need to, one day. Find me."

***

The Doctor walks her out of the TARDIS, and stands beside her.

"I haven't ever thanked you for that time," Sarah tells him. "And like I said -- I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"Something to tell the grandkids," he says easily, and she laughs ruefully.

"Oh, I think it'll be someone else's grandkids now."

He suddenly looks rather awkward, as if realizing he just might have accidentally probed a sore spot. "Right. Yes, sorry -- I didn't get a chance to ask. You haven't... there hasn't been anyone...? You know...?"

Sarah smiles. Funny to hear him bringing up such things. "Well... there was this one guy. I travelled with him for a while. But he was a tough act to follow."

The Doctor's face is a picture as he registers who she means. She laughs a little, as a slow, soft smile lights his features.

It's time. "Goodbye, Doctor," she says.

He actually flinches from that word, as if it hurts him physically. "Oh, it's not goodbye -- " he begins, but she interrupts.

"Say it, please. This time. Say it."

She wonders if he will. For someone who's left and been left so many times over his long life, it's amazing to think that "goodbye" is such a foreign word to him. Maybe even more so now than when they had parted the first time.

But he finally looks straight into her eyes and says it. "Goodbye." And he smiles. "My Sarah Jane."

She finds herself caught up in his arms and hugged so tightly that it lifts her off the ground. There'd been no hugs the first time. But that's something she's noticed about this Doctor -- he's a lot less shy about touching the people he loves than he used to be. Perhaps he's more willing to show them that love now because they're all he has left.

He goes back into the TARDIS. Closes the door. She can't watch as it dematerializes, but she turns back around to look at the empty spot where it had stood.

And a brand-new K9 is sitting there.

She smiles as she takes him home.

 

~end


End file.
